A 16 page paper presenting a study of whether those in the immediate vicinity of a nuclear power plant feel less safe after the 9/11 terrorist attacks than before. The paper provides a literature review focusing on studies of people in and near the Chernobyl area as well as Three Mile Island; the study compares perceptions of men and women living near a nuclear power plant near which have been new informational meetings since the terrorist attacks. Statistical analysis reveals that men feel less safe than women, but only marginally so. Bibliography lists 12 sources.
Name of Research Paper File: CC6_KSresNukeRel.rtf
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Introduction The public always has been apprehensive about nuclear power plants being located in their immediate vicinity. Several studies have concluded that
the "psychosocial effects of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor" (Baverstock, 1996; p. 22) in some ways were worse than the disaster itself, in which 31 people died. The psychological effects
of the disaster plagued the region for years, as a kind of intangible, residual contamination as real as the physical contamination suffered as a result of the accident.
One glaring point connected with Chernobyl was the conflicting information that the people of the area received. To say that the former Union of
Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) discouraged foreign involvement in internal affairs is to commit gross understatement. In that light the governments request for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to
evaluate the area of Chernobyl more than three years after the nuclear power plant accident there was nothing short of remarkable. The Soviets had been dealing with ongoing health
complaints although the government believed the affected areas to be safe (Ginzburg, 1993). They requested that the IAEA evaluate both the physical and mental health of residents in affected
areas. That group and several researchers have found that greater amounts of information of better quality than the people received likely could have had a long-standing positive effect on
the people of the affected area. Taylor (2002) studied some of the potential approaches that the New Zealand government could take in organizing
"psychological first-aiders" (Taylor, 2002; p. 104) in the event of catastrophe occurring in New Zealand. Impetus for the study was the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 in the
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